Hello, my name is Peter Vaselopulos. I am recently retired from the federal government as Deputy Chief Information Officer at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). While serving 35 years at USAGM I worked as a broadcast journalist, international television producer, and new media and information technology specialist. Prior to working at USAGM I was a videographer for Cable News Network.
I am a 40-year resident of Arlington County in Virginia and very interested in local Civil War history. I am a Civil War reenactor and teach adult education history courses for Arlington Encore.
I am currently a board member of the Alliance to Preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C., Vice President of the 3rd US Infantry Reenactors, and was a member of Arlington County’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee.
I am a graduate of George Washington University and American University, with masters’ degrees in Managing Information Systems and International Communications.
Currently I am working on a master’s certificate in Digital Humanities from George Mason University. I am also working on a digital history project called “Mapping the Civil War in Arlington.” The project’s goal is to generate a greater awareness of Arlington’s military history during the first year of the Civil War.
I am very interested in the backend systems that support online historical collections, and the impact that they are having on the future of teaching history. In particular, I am tracking AI and machine learning, and interested to see what role these technologies will play in promoting public history and the humanities.
Finally, I am interested in how information technology is empowering individuals to become digital historians. I am hoping to use the skills that I am learning in these courses to start the next phase of my career. This could either be through starting my own public history company, or finding a position with an established firm.
